Seeing Animals on Egdon Heath: The Democratic Impulse of Thomas Hardy's <i>The Return of the Native</i>

Abstract

This article analyses the democratic impulse of animal representations in Thomas Hardy’s early novel The Return of the Native. I build on recent ecocritical scholarship that imagines political categories beyond the human, and historicize democracy in the context of the Victorian period and the Victorian novel. I suggest that Hardy recognizes the claims that animals have on human attention beyond their imbrication in a larger environment, and offers a more horizontal representation that includes animals. This democratic impulse requires a fundamental shift in perception, requiring humans to take seriously animal perspectives. Conceptualizing a more horizontal field of perspectives that includes the recognition of animals and our coexistence with them nuances what it means to think ecologically. At the same time, Hardy importantly shows the difficulty of moving beyond the human in thinking ecologically, as his novel suggests an ecological democracy is only possible through human representation.